


No One But You

by awed_frog



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Castiel-centric, Cautiously Optimistic, Episode: s11e10 The Devil in the Details, Episode: s11e11 Into the Mystic, M/M, Mathematics, Meta, Poetry, Random Sherlock Quote, Theology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 21:13:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5841181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awed_frog/pseuds/awed_frog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, why did Cas say yes to Lucifer? And is it ever possible to follow one's heart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One But You

_What, my boy, you are not weeping? You should save your eyes for sight;_  
_You will need them, mine observer, yet for many another night._  
_I leave none but you, my pupil, unto whom my plans are known._  
_You “have none but me,” you murmur, and I “leave you quite alone”?_

_Well then, kiss me, – since my mother left her blessing on my brow,_  
_There has been a something wanting in my nature until now;_  
_I can dimly comprehend it, – that I might have been more kind,_  
_Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind._

 

This last episode left me very empty and yet full to the brim. I don’t even want to write a coda for it - I _can’t_ write a coda for it - because it felt like fanfiction already. The lines are blurring. It’s becoming more and more difficult to tell apart canon and wishful thinking (and even, somehow, fiction from reality).

I’ve been working on a Dean meta for a while now, but it’s nowhere near finished; on the contrary, it’s become teary and weird (it now includes quite a few paragraphs contrasting _Supernatural_ with Marxist theories, so I’ll definitely need to edit it when I’ve slept more than fours hours). And I’ve been dying to write a Cas meta for a few weeks, which is why today I thought, why not.

 

Things we learned from this last episode:

Sam thinks a broken heart is a bit of a stretch, and probably not a real physical injury (which goes to show he should read _actual_ newspapers, or even _Buzzfeed_ , for God's sake, instead of checking _newsblur_ and setting it to report suspicious arsons, closed room murders and pentagrams written in human blood, because a guy last week definitely proved heartbreak is real and measurable, so there); that you can only be vulnerable to a Banshee because of something medically treatable; and that there is nothing wrong with his brother.

(Oh, Sam.)

Sam, though, is open to a 'potential of love in all places’ for Dean. He was clearly teasing him about Mildred, but he also went out of his way to tell Dean everything and anything was perfectly alright ( _Seriously? I’m not judging._ ).

Dean himself, meanwhile, is so starved for affection that there was definitely _something_ between him and Mildred. Of course, not something he’d pursue ( _Your hand is still on my knee._ ) but he still looked flustered and nervous and pleased - I think Jensen played those scenes exactly the way he played it with Aaron. Dean is cocksure around women he can bed once and forget about; Dean is awkward around people he likes (people who seem to care about him). Hell, he even rolls his eyes at _Crowley_ way more than it’s strictly necessary, because he _knows_ there is something there - knows that Crowley is somehow fond of him, despite everything that passed between them. And, of course, it’s a fifty fifty thing: Dean doesn’t know how to express how being cared about makes him feel, and he doesn’t think he deserves that care in the first place.

(Dean glancing at Cas’ lips, then away, when Lucifer asks him to talk about the Darkness; Dean looking stricken when Lucifer realizes he is attracted to Amara - _Oh, Dean_.)

And we now know Dean is _pining_ for someone. This is a very strong verb. It goes beyond a quiet feeling of love; that gentle warmth of liking and wishing, vaguely, that maybe. No, 'pining' is what keeps you awake at night, and, indeed, Dean can’t sleep (Jesus, the end of this episode - this whole episode - I can’t. I just can’t). Now, as you may know I’m not an optimist by nature, but, really, I do think we have a S10E16 situation on our hands here ( _There's things, there's people, feelings that I - I want to experience differently than I did before, or maybe even for the first time._ ); and I do think it’s a stretch to imagine Mildred was referring to Amara. 

(If only because that would turn a very sweet episode into eeeeeek.)

Notice first of all how Dean doesn’t deny anything, even looks vaguely pleased, until Mildred says, _I don’t know who the lucky lady is, but_. I mean, I do hope we get a thousand gifs about this, because, really, when Mildred says Dean is pining for somebody else (gender neutral pronoun), he gets all uncomfortable, but also schools his face in a kind of _Oh, well, sue me_ expression; but the _second_ Mildred mentions the existence of a mystery _woman_ , Dean’s mind comes back from the rabbit hole (the real, tangible affection between himself and Cas, and, perhaps, a future where they can grow old together right there at _Oak Park_ ) to get into the bitter reality of his life (Cas there and gone again; Amara stalking him); and here comes the knee-jerk reaction, the denial: _I’m single and ready to mingle_ (“You got that from a book, didn’t you?”). Furthermore, Dean told Cas the day before he didn’t know what he felt for Amara. An 'attraction' (Cas’ word - Lucifer trying to screw with Dean’s brain, and also, if Cas can actually see all of this, with Cas’), or a 'connection'. Something Dean is scared of, something he is not sure he can resist. And all of this has _nothing_ to do with pining. It would be closer to an obsession, maybe.

(There’s also the fact - and sadly I’m not speaking from experience here, but I strongly assume this - that when you fancy someone, you can usually pick up if they’re in love with someone else; what you _can’t_ pick up is if they’re fearing they’re going to be raped into submission by a supernatural creature, so.)

(What I meant is, I never met someone who was being stalked by God’s sister while simultaneously having a crush on someone else.)

(My guess is that it would quite easy to tell the two apart, though.)

(Having a crush looks nothing like fearing for your life, whatever Sappho says.)

And then, yes, Dean leaves half of his bed open, as usual (Sam doesn’t; Sam falls asleep with his dreams of a normal life and his little box and a girl who may or may not call; Dean can’t sleep). 

And what about Cas?

Well.

Lucifer mimics him (almost) to perfection.

(I know it’s always Misha, but here is really where you see it - Misha playing Lucifer, Misha playing Lucifer playing Cas. A very good performance, in my opinion.)

He knows the famous sentence ( _Hello, Dean_ ).

He knows he’s the one who must stand too close and touch Dean (though he uses the wrong hand because, this is how they played it before, Lucifer is a perfect ambidextrous where Cas is not - Cas can fight with both hands, but he always uses his right hand for ‘normal’ stuff, where Lucifer does not).

He knows Dean will tell him _anything_ if he just asks.

He knows he shouldn’t like secrets, but that he’ll always, inevitably, trust Dean and do what Dean asks him.

(He also knows he can come and go as he pleases, no explanation necessary, because Dean is used to Cas walking out on him.)

He doesn’t know, though, that Cas never talks about his own problems; that Dean has to force him ( _Talk to me._ ). When he starts chattering about Amara as soon as Dean walks in, Dean looks a bit weirded out. Cas hadn’t told him anything about his encounter with Amara, and I think he wasn’t planning to - Cas has little interest in his own survival but hates letting Dean down, and when confronting Amara he let Dean down twice (he didn’t run away from her, as Dean had told him to, and he didn’t manage to hurt her).

Also, Cas doesn’t make a mess of things (not because he cares himself - he doesn’t - but because he knows Dean is compulsively neat - look at him closing the ruined drawers); and he doesn’t, perhaps, make himself at home in the Bunker in quite such a flamboyant way. 

And, mostly, there is this one thing Lucifer doesn’t _get_ \- look at him anticipating using Dean as bait against Amara ( _It may help to draw her out. This could be a good thing._ ) - I’m guessing that _this_ , most of all, is the detail buzzing inside Dean’s head - the thing he can’t put into focus, but knows is wrong. Cas would never _ever_ put Dean in danger - no matter the strategical advantage.

And Dean _does_ look uncomfortable in that moment - a moment neither Cas’ body, nor his mind, fit against Dean’s just right (Cas using his left hand; Cas pleased about the connection between Dean and Amara).

In fact, if Sam hadn’t called -

But Sam did call.

Still, in case this point was too subtly made, Robbie highlighted it in the very next lines: _I don’t like using Mildred as bait_ , Dean says, because that’s who he is (a mother hen, a worrier; and here, again, this is used to contrast him with Sam, who’s much more of a daredevil, despite all appearances). 

So, here it is. 

Oh, and we also know Cas is still in there, since Lucifer seems to be preying upon his memories and experiences.

(Sigh.)

Back to Cas.

 

Things we learned from the other episodes:

Right.

We know way too much about Cas, and I’m not about to write a novel here. Something has been bugging me, though. Misha saying Cas feels unloved. All that talk about him being expendable. Cas played as someone who’s depressed, could even suffer from PTSD. As someone who gave in to Lucifer in desperation, because he is, perhaps, downright suicidal.

I want to say it clearly: I don’t think all this is wrong, _per se_. And I do think it is the right reading of what’s happening, and what the show is trying to convey.

Cas _is_ feeling unloved and expendable and depressed and perhaps even suicidal.

But this interpretation, well. It makes me unhappy. It’s more than I can bear for a character I love so very much. Also, I was sort of trained to say, _Okay, what if. Let’s turn it around. Let’s play devil’s advocate for a second_. 

(Though not, perhaps, literally. Lucifer seems to be doing plenty fine on his own.)

Let’s argue that Cas is not depressed; that he did not gave himself up as a vessel as a last resort.

(Please, let’s.)

What canon says: Cas is an angel. A multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent (whatever that means). He rebelled because Dean asked him to. He means well, but he usually makes things worse. He’s now at the end of his rope - he’s suffering from PTSD, feels as if his life has no meaning or purpose whatsoever.

 _Sed contra_ : angels are not humans. They are a different breed of being. What I think is particularly relevant here is that a) they have no understanding of free will and b) they are immortal. They are _supposed_ to feel nothing and want nothing for themselves.

I think this is never mentioned enough; then again, how can you tell any kind of story if you stop every five minutes to try and account for your weird, alien characters? 

(Ask Susanna Clarke or Neil Gaiman, that’s how.)

Some suspension of disbelief is necessary, and that’s okay.

But the thing is, we cannot forget about it (Dean certainly doesn’t forget about it). It _must_ be there, somewhere in the back of our minds. 

(This character is not human; never will be.)

Now, one of the remarkable things about Cas is that he took such an interest in the lives of people who matter so little. I mean, we are so accustomed to vampires and things falling in love with teenage girls and spending eternity reliving high school, that we don’t even notice it anymore, and instead we really should. 

To start with, time is weird and yet the absolute lens by which we measure everything and, boy, I wish I was even half competent in scientific things to grasp this concept a bit better, but still.

You know, today is one of those days I am not exactly sure what is reality and what is memory and what is something I just had a dream about once. I think I do remember watching a nature documentary made by the _other_ Attenborough (the _Gandhi_ guy) about his back garden, but all I can find online is that a human head was once found in his backyard (Wait, _what_?). So I’m not sure. What I _do_ remember is that I saw this at a time when things couldn’t be explored and uncovered so easily; when you basically learned about stuff because someone told you about it in class, or because you went and searched for something specific - a time when it was way harder than today to find out random facts about things. Which is why, perhaps, this documentary forced me to look at something I’d never considered before: that plants were not only pretty and green, but that they are _actually_ alive in every sense of the world. That they move around (as much as they can, that is) and make decisions.

That documentary shocked the hell out of teenager me. It was a kind of timelapse - three months condensed to three minutes, or something - and you could see it very clearly (this world we live side by side with; this world we never think about): there was some kind of ivy pushing its tendrils one way, then visibly changing its mind, crawling back, picking a different thing to do. 

(There are trees who remember, though _remember_ is perhaps not the right word, Genghis Khan’s invasions.)

In fact, we are so limited that it’s difficult for us to see the other thing too - to care for things who live a very, very short life (in actual reality, that is, or inside our own minds, because there is no difference between the two). We survive on empathy, and it’s much easier to have empathy for something we’re used being around to. Way easier to become attached to a ten-year old t-shirt (and all the memories we have of it) than to a limping dog we saw from the window of our car, like, once, for five seconds. Even if the dog clearly needed us more than that t-shirt does.

All that said, how do angels see us?

(I’m sure someone must have done these calculations before, but here we go.) 

Well. Angels are by nature immortal, which makes the math part complicated. We could go with a life of 4 billions years (a bit less than the actual age of planet Earth), but that makes everything ridiculous, and is arbitrary anyway, because who knows when God _actually_ created the angels? 

(From a narrative, _Supernatural_ point of view, of course; not arguing anything different here.)

No, let’s be generous and pick any number between 6 million years (the time men have been around) and 200 000 years (the appearance of our modern selves). And that _is_ generous, considering that Cas himself told us he’s actually seen that one fish crawl out of the water (that would make him at least 350 million year old). If we assume, therefore, that Castiel is between 6 million and 200 000 years old, then he would perceive the average length of a human life (again, let’s be generous: 90 years) as being between 12 hours and 14 days long. And, since Dean is not even _half_ that age, Dean, to Cas, has been around for less than a week (or even six hours, depending on how we’re counting). 

So, let’s go with the most generous option: at this point in his (long, blessed) life, Cas has known Dean for two weeks. From his point of view, about three hours had passed when Dean flat-out asked him to renounce everything he was and change sides.

Let that sink in.

It will never not amaze me.

(Oh, Cas.)

Because the thing is, Cas _did_ that. He gave up his whole identity for the sake of someone he’d known for three hours; a being so different from himself Cas could not even understand it properly. It’s literally like a hamster walked up to you and said, _You know what? Your sister wants me to keep me inside that cage. That’s wrong. Please break me out, and if she stops you, kill her_.

(Hamsters are weird, though, so it’s quite possible this will at some point happen to you. If it does, don’t listen to them. Anything that can carry half his body weight inside its cheeks is clearly deranged.)

So that’s the first thing. A different species, with a different concept of time.

Second, the whole free will and emotions issue.

Now, we know that Cas is a faulty angel. We know he’s been rebooted several times, but that he’s capable of caring about things (humanity; Dean). He’s capable of love, even, and this is why, most of all, the other angels are wary of him. 

But, again, what does this mean, exactly?

We can comfortably argue that humans, like other animals, are born with the capacity to love; that empathy is an innate trait of character. However, it is undeniable that love is also learned behaviour. Any decent family, and any organized society, will take the time to guide a child through the complicated rules of love. Hugging, kissing (where and when); petting an animal without hurting it; the different ways to express that we care about each other (allowing someone to copy your homework; or, _not_ allowing someone to copy your homework but taking the time to help them out instead; cooking for someone; not saying we love someone, thus allowing them to walk away). Love is an incredibly complicated business. And Cas - Cas never learned properly about any of this.

Sure, we can argue he was watching humanity, but that would be more confusing than anything else (different cultures have so many different rules) and, whatever he has been doing with his life, by the time Cas meets the Winchester he’s still very angelic in his attitude and demeanour. He doesn’t know anything about books or music, and okay; but he doesn’t understand anything else, either. He’s clearly exasperated by Dean’s decision not to let Sam die alone. He didn’t seem to understand what spending time in Hell had done to Dean (in a scene that must have sparked many viewers’ sexual awakening, he carelessly threatened to throw Dean back in); he didn’t even notice Sam was soulless, for crying out loud (nor did he give a thought about the implications of this). 

No, I think we all agree on this: whatever happened to him, both as an angel and (briefly) as a human, and whatever changed when Metatron gave him proper knowledge of every story ever written, Cas learned how to be human by watching the Winchesters (by watching Dean).

This means that, while it’s not wrong to read Cas as depressed, even suicidal, I doubt he’d see _himself_ as such. For him, everything he is -

(no self-worth whatsoever; this _a day late and a dollar short_ feeling; the inability to cope, to talk about his feelings; the flashbacks, the nightmares; this one certainty: that it’s inevitable, even necessary, to keep fighting, because the world is worth saving, whatever the cost)

\- is perfectly normal, because that’s what Dean is.

Not only that: it also fits in with what Cas had learned about humanity _before_ meeting Dean ( _I see nothing here worth saving._ ) and when he was human himself (the constant sense of danger; the cold, the pain, the hunger; the extreme vulnerability). Cas _expects_ this to be the human experience. He doesn’t know to ask for anything else, because Dean doesn’t. 

(Dean, the Righteous Man, to whom the Host of Heaven offered the world, grew up without a house and without a plan and without any right of having wishes of his own. And it never occurred to him any of it was wrong.)

Cas doesn’t even expect to _survive_ long - because Dean doesn’t. This is the natural order of things. This was his reality before Dean (he was a soldier, and therefore expendable) and is _still_ his reality after he rebels from Dean, because, as radical as this rebellion is, it doesn’t change what Cas is (a soldier, and therefore expendable). So, well, Cas discovers his free will in fits and starts, because what he does, in reality, is taking his orders from Dean and not from the Host; and I am not talking here about literal orders, because of course, Dean wouldn’t stand for this. I am talking about a kind of imprinting; a mimicking of sorts.

(Cas choosing to help his brothers even after they have betrayed him is not a _Oh, Cas, you precious cinnamon roll_ moment; it’s _Dean_ choosing to come back to his brother and trust his brother after everything - after Stanford, after Ruby, after Amelia; after his own father had told him, quite clearly, that one day Dean’s to-do for the day would have included killing Sam. And how can Cas fall short of this one, unchallenged standard? Being there for Sam is the very core of what Dean is, and therefore, it makes sense that it becomes what Cas tries to be.)

What this all means is that Cas’ life is _not_ , after all, a series of mistakes and a history of bad judgement. 

Cas gets killed by Raphael doing exactly what he succeeds to do (keep the archangels away from Dean).

He gets killed by Lucifer doing what he succeeds to do (give Dean enough time and room for action to reach what is left of his brother).

He becomes weird and demented as God, but he succeeds in his primary goal (kill Raphael), and, anyway, how was that a bad choice? Cas is a soldier and a strategist; he’s the one who knows how Heaven works. If he says there was no other way to kill Raphael, I’m inclined to believe him (it’s not like Dean took him seriously; it’s not like Dean would have known how to fight an archangel). Raphael would have _emptied_ the Earth. He would have burned everything to the ground, and salted the remains. What the Leviathans end up doing is kill Cas (one lone soldier instead of billions of humans) and then proceed to implement a (rather modest) plan to turn North America into a sort of farm. Lucifer (and Raphael) would have done far, far worse than that.

(What this confrontation with Raphael also shows is the sheer difference in power between an angel and an archangel. Cas has astounding powers, especially when he’s connected to Heaven and the Host, but this nothing - _nothing_ \- compared to what the archangels can do. Even the fact that Cas could say yes to Lucifer seems to imply, to me, not that Cas is becoming human, but simply that an archangel is to an angel what an angel is to a human; and Cas himself, perhaps, said all that needs to be said on the issue: _Archangels are fierce. They are absolute. They are Heaven’s most terrifying weapon_.)

Even working with Metatron, in the end, was not such a bad decision. Naomi had proven herself untrustworthy in the past - she’d tortured Cas, of course, and almost forced him to kill Dean, but she was also close to Crowley (a connection which, alas, was never fully explained) - while Metatron was _personally_ chosen by God and therefore was, by definition, worthy. Closing up Heaven would have broken Cas (because by then, his only purpose was to be close to Dean and protect Dean) but Cas is a strategist and a soldier, and he chose to go ahead anyway.

(And Dean was also ready to risk this: he once went along with Sam’s insane plan to be possessed by Lucifer by choice, and he knew Sam would probably die from that. What is heartbreaking, though, is that Dean, like Sam, has now gone soft: he put a stop to their plan to close Hell, because he knew Sam wouldn’t survive it. Something - Cas - is giving Dean enough sense of self-worth to put his own desires first. Cas, on the other hand, doesn’t have this support, this one person who believes in him no matter what. Furthermore, like Dean, and Sam, and now Eileen, he was _trained_ , not _raised_ ; but, unlike them, he never had a single conversation about the value of his own life: _At least this way, something good could come out of it, you know? It's like my life could mean something. - What? And it didn't before?_ ) 

And next - not doing anything to save himself after Metatron took his Grace - this is a parallel for what Dean was doing as a demon. Embracing that this is his life now, and it’s no great loss, anyway. Just as Dean was in theory working for Crowley but in practice doing random things, so Cas was trying to work with Hannah but doing other things (pining for Dean, trying to parley with rogue angels). Dean had accepted the possibility, if not the certainty, of death ( _Sammy let me go_ ) and therefore, so had Cas. Crowley saving him by using stolen Grace was just as unwelcome and violent, in a way, as Dean being tied to a chair and forced-fed blessed blood. Neither of them wanted this to happen; not really.

(Also, once again the black-and-white guys - Dean and Cas - were paralled to the _the end justifies the means_ guys - Crowley and Sam. But that's another meta.)

So, everything Cas has done is _exactly_ what Dean has done, over and over: strategically good decisions which led to a resounding victories with a steep personal cost (most noticeably, Sam’s death, twice). Dean doesn’t care about himself because of reasons (again, that would be a whole different meta) and Cas didn’t care about himself from the beginning (he was created to be a soldier). That Dean confirmed this was a valid approach to reality is only serendipity.

So, well, I don’t believe that Cas gave himself up to Lucifer because he was depressed, or because he was duped. I don't think he wants to die. I think he considered the situation objectively ( _Can we do anything against Amara? No. Do we need to stop her at all cost? Yes._ ) from every angle ( _Will this stop Lucifer going after Sam? Almost certainly. Will this kill me? Irrelevant._ ) and then took a strategic decision. Because Sam saying no to Lucifer - I honestly don’t know how to read that. Of course, it was an incredibly strong choice, but, on the other hand, wasn’t that Sam choosing Dean over the world (again)? Because, well, he seemed convinced they would find a way - _what_ way, exactly? So far, Amara has (rather easily) defeated anything and anyone. We know she wants to claim the world for herself, and that nothing good will come of it. God is as good as dead, as are the archangels (though I will never, ever accept Gabriel will not come back to us); and the only person who could control the _Book of the Damned_ ended up with her neck snapped in half.

There is no way out. There is no help.

So, yes, perhaps Sam was brave in that Cage, but I still think Lucifer was not wrong: Sam had been much braver last time - he’d said yes to the Devil, had forced him to submit in the only way that was possible: by killing himself. Bringing Sam back was little more than a narrative twist to keep the show going. According to any logic, Sam should have died. As other people have pointed out, that was the arc of the show: boy with demon blood whose destiny is to rule the world and destroy it chooses free will over destiny and saves the world instead. Sacrifice, and especially self-sacrifice, is the way forward. Nothing comes from nothing.

Which is why frankly, I don’t think Cas would care about Ambriel and Amara telling him he’s expendable. He knows he is; he’s not fazed by it. Sure, he’s now afraid to die because, again, he learned this from Dean - Dean is the one who lives like this - convinced he’ll not last the winter, seemingly okay with it because this is what he was trained to be, but scared as fuck underneath it all, wishing, ever more desperately, that he could just be _normal_ , do what regular folks seem to do so effortlessly (express their own feelings; find themselves a home, a family). Cas was not afraid of dying before; he is now, because Dean is. But the idea that he _cares_ , one way or the other - well. Cas is not human, never willl be; which means that, in a way, the inside of his brain is his own. The way I read the show, though, is that what Cas craves, by this point, is not a long life but a sense of belonging. For a being who’s been part of a hive for so long, being pushed out of it and hated by his brothers must cut deep. And Cas has seen, over and over, that Dean doesn’t want him - Dean has pushed him away more than once and Dean will always, always choose Sam (which is bitterly ironic after Cas betrayed and killed his _own_ brothers for Dean). So, yeah, I think Cas _does_ feel incomplete and unhappy, but only because he doesn’t belong anywhere and doesn’t feel a part of anything. Whether he doesn’t see Dean’s true feelings, or chooses not to see them, or doesn’t understand them, or is convinced Dean will never act on them - this is something we’ll perhaps never be shown.

But, again, I do not believe Cas says yes to Lucifer out of despair and self-loathing. I believe it is a good strategic decision, and their only choice at this point. If and when everything will finally be over (Amara defeated, Lucifer pushed back into the Cage) Dean’s first task will be to take a good hard look at himself and (finally) realize what he has (unwittingly) done to Cas. He will need (finally) to love himself a bit more, so that Cas will see that’s okay. And he will need to communicate his own feelings a bit more clearly, because -

( _God_ )

\- because, truly, the only fault in Cas’ logic here is that he doesn’t _understand_ what his death would do to Dean - and how could he? Dean has never put this into words; not even, perhaps, to himself.

Because, well, love is truly complicated, and Mildred can say whatever she wants - following your heart is not as clear-cut as it sounds.

(Cas knew killing that Nephilim girl was wrong, and he went ahead anyway. He knew killing Rowena’s boy was wrong, and he went ahead anyway. Had he listened to his heart, perhaps his brothers wouldn’t have fallen, but Dean would be dead.)

When do you stay? When do you walk away?

(No one is irreplaceable; everyone is expendable. And yet. And yet.) 

Cas doesn’t understand how love works, not fully. How deeply lonely Dean is without him, how much Dean relies on Cas’ support and trust and affection. He doesn’t get that when Dean says, _Can I give you a lift?_ , what he means is, _Please come home with me_. And that when he says, _Yeah, I get it, whatever you need to do_ , what he means is, _Why are you leaving? Please stay - please don’t get killed - please come back to me_.

No, like the old astronomer in Sarah Williams’ famous poem, Cas will not understand what love truly means until someone - until _Dean_ \- tells him outright: _I have no one but you (I want no one but you)_.

The question is, will it be too late by then?

(The old astronomer died without being able to tell Venus apart from Mars; he died hoping God would guide him home anyway.)

**Author's Note:**

> I did not mean to imply that _The Old Astronomer_ portrays a homosexual relatioship; personally, I don't think the poem is to be read that way. It is, however, a poem about love.
> 
> (Also: guys, I am now on tumblr - sort of - as awed-frog. But, like Misha, I am the kind of person who would probably use their followers to take over the world, so take that into account if you want to look me up. Every ask will be answered, obviously.)


End file.
